1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for shuffling objects such as lottery balls.
It also relates to the drawing machine equipped with the shuffling device.
2. Description of Related Art
Drawings for the lottery or similar games generally take place with the aid of balls placed inside a drawing machine.
Instead of balls, disks, dice or cards may be used.
The machine comprises:
an enclosure, generally spherical and transparent, into which is inserted a predetermined number of balls, each having a means of identification, such as a number, different from that of the other balls, and PA1 a means for randomly selecting at least one ball, and more generally a predetermined number of balls.
The inserted balls must, of course, be shuffled before the selection of the first ball, and more generally before each selection.
For this purpose, various shuffling devices exist.
For example, there are known devices that use air jets (EP-A-0348281).
These devices are visually attractive but require the balls to be relatively light and/or the air jets to be relatively strong.
There are also known mechanical shuffling devices (U.S. Pat. No. 3,810,629) which use, at the base of the enclosure, a rotating disk whose surface facing the inside of the sphere carries substantially radial projecting bars, which are intended to hit the balls.
The latter devices are easier to produce but could be improved.
Thus, the object of the invention is to improve the mechanical shuffling devices of the type mentioned above.